Disclaimer: I forgot this in the last chapter, but none of the character in this work of fiction belong to me. I only own the plot.

Warning: Depiction of self-harm, possibly triggering

Chapter One – Burns

"Walk away."

"What?"

"I said, Walk away."

"Why?"

"Just because."

I squeezed his hand and it was cold like ice.

"Why do I have to walk away?"

"Because I don't want to do this anymore."

And that was when my heart broke for the first time.

You know how sometimes when you wake up after a night of drinking, you feel like you were run over by a train? Yep, I felt exactly that way right now. I randomly grabbed an oversized shirt from my drawers and I went out of my bedroom, and I begin to feel much worse than before. Why? Well, there were threereasons. Firstly, I became perfectly aware of what had happened last night. Secondly, because he was sitting on my couch. Thirdly, because I was realised I was wearing one of the shirts he had left behind after our "nights" in the past.

And he smoking a cigarette. A fucking cigarette.

And I thought to myself "Jesus, you've screwed over big time, Squall...big time."

I watched as he pushed the upperclassman's offer of a lit cigarette away from him. The upperclassman held the cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag from it, reveling in it's taste and aroma.

"Geez Squall, why'd you have to be so fucking perfect. 'fraid they won't let you in if they find out you smoke?"

Later, I found out why he doesn't smoke. In his own words, it's cause his father smokes, and his father is a loser, so if he smokes it'll make him a loser like his father.

Leaning in and kissing him somewhat playfully on his cheek, I told him, "You don't have to be so perfect, you know Squall? Everyone has their own faults." He looked into my eyes and said "I have to be perfect for you."

He took a long drag from his cigarette, just like we had watched the upperclassman do, and the air filled with the cloying smell of smoke, bittersweet.

"Um, Squall." He turned and stared at me like I was a monster with five eyes and seven limbs.

"What do you want?"

I flinched at his hostility, for it was like a stab with a blunt knife, straight into my heart. What happened to the fairytale ending I had imagined? Where was the "I'm sorry, Rinoa, can we go back to what we were then?

"Don't assume that just because we had sex, you mean something to me, because when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me."

Oh my god, was this Squall I was hearing?

"I..."

"I just wanted to fuck with your feelings. Get it? Fuck with your feelings. Haha." He let out some cold laughter, and in the silence they reverberated, jarring like a poorly sung note by an amateur soprano . Oh God, Squall, what had happened to you. You hated lame puns back then.

Oh right, that was "back then". I reminded myself that I didn't know him now. He could have three wives, seven children and a million gil for all I knew. Okay, I knew about the million gil part, but you get the idea.

And somehow his words stung me, and I felt like I was back to being a child who believed all the lies adults ever told me, like the tale of Santa Claus, and how I felt when I found out Santa Claus wasn't real and my parents were just fibbing to me half the time. There was this annoyance I felt at myself, for having allowed someone to deceive me again, for allowing myself to believe him, and that I wanted it all to stop.

"Well, fuck you for thinking that way." I watched as my words wiped the stupid grin off his face. Heh. "I was just fucking with you too." He let out a scathing "hmph", smirked, and he held out the cigarette. "Prove it."

"Why should I?"

"Because if you're really fucking with me, you would smoke with complete disregard with reference to my stance on cigarettes in the past."

He knew it. He had seen me look at him smoke with disbelief. He knew that I was thinking about what he had said in the past. He could still read me like a book.

I took the lit cigarette from his hand, but I didn't do what he wanted me to do this time. I pulled up my sleeve, allowing him to see the scars on my arm, like ladders descending straight to hell. Looking into his eyes, I pressed the cigarette to my arm. It burned, but hell, it felt good. Not expecting that I would take him up on his dare, he snatched the cigarette from my fingers. "You're a crazy bitch, you know that? "

God knows I did it only to prove that I loved him as much as he loved me, which was "Not at all", or at least, to convince myself of that fact that I loved him no longer.

But in truth, when I did it, I had my fingers crossed behind my back the whole time.

A/N: Whew, I'm glad that was done. This was one helluva chapter to write. So I'm done with mids and all (Hehe, pretty pleased with my results) I'm sorry if people don't like the idea of Rinoa self-harming, or Squall smoking. Personally, I don't advocate self-harm, use of tobacco, or some of the other themes that might be presented in this work of fiction, but the truth is that these things happen. They could happen to anyone. Oh yes, and the Past is in italics, while the present is in normal font. So I hope this doesn't confuse you guys.

R&R!